Chapter 102: Reeds That Point the Wrong Way

Cold water climbed over Dane’s lower rims and shoved at the packs lashed across his Wagon bed.

Behind him, the flooded shaft hammered the landing. Ahead, a bundle of living reeds creaked under the added flow. Each tightening stem sent more water across the stones beneath Buk’s litter.

One block rocked.

Flat Hands and Lye Scar lifted Buk before the second block could move. Both of Brant’s arms stayed fixed, so he turned his whole body to follow the route.

"Left gap is still above the water," he said. "Kril, find its floor. Flat, take Buk’s head. Lye, his feet stay higher than the ring."

Kril’s blades clicked into the channel. A seedhead whispered across one edge; then metal pressed against thick, wet fiber.

"Cut that braid and three beds get the shaft water," the raker said.

Kril stopped. The reed kept its full tension, and no sap scent reached Dane.

The raker waded between him and the ring. Bone scraped iron as he turned his rake and caught the braid with its blunt back. He pulled.

Water changed direction at once. A narrow stream struck stone across the channel. Someone swore. A cookstone grated from its hollow; rolled mats thumped against a wall while bare feet splashed around them.

"It’s under the first bed," Brant said.

The rake relaxed. Tension ran out through the living stems, the stream dropped back into its old groove, and the hurried dragging stopped. A wooden bar slammed into sockets across the threatened room.

Brant raised his voice over the water. "Give us your name. If those hands are choosing where we put our wounded, I need to know who I’m arguing with."

"Serrick."

His rake teeth touched the left wall, the channel floor, then the iron ring. "Litter head through there. Keep the foot pole above my handle, or the low braid takes him."

Flat Hands backed into the opening. Lye Scar followed sideways, shortening the step on his bad leg while Flat Hands slowed his own retreat to keep Buk level. Reeds scraped over the litter. One tassel dragged across Buk’s chest and buried itself in his beard.

"Kesh’s road is eating Buk’s face," he said.

The next seedhead entered his mouth. His complaint ended in a wet cough. Flat Hands lowered the head pole just enough for the reeds to slide free, then carried him through with both brooms still crossed against his chest. Pell’s brass meal tab knocked between the handles until Lye Scar found the next shelf.

The coffer tapped six feet against the mouth of the gap. Its front-left leg reached for a raised strip of stone. A knock sounded from the front compartment, and the foot withdrew. The front-right leg tested a submerged groove; a different knock answered from the rear. Four lighter impacts repeated the first testing rhythm after both forward legs had already changed course.

The coffer chose the groove. Three legs folded beneath the live braid, three held the body off the ring, and then the pairs traded jobs on the far side.

Water covered the stone it had left. Reeds dragged around the ring, and the redirected current struck Dane’s front-right wheel from the gap the coffer had used.

Serrick laid his rake across the next gap. The handle touched rock at one end and stopped against Dane’s right rail at the other.

"Your rear is three fingers too wide," Brant reported. "Right wheel has a low groove. Left ridge keeps the dead corner up, if we can hold you angled."

Dane tested both surfaces. His right wheels sank a finger into the channel. The left pair stood higher, but the current struck beneath the bed and tried to turn his broad side downstream. Each push shifted the supply lash across his floor; every knot held while the pack weight kept pulling toward deeper water.

Ada set both hands around rod one without moving it. "The split can take a slow turn. It cannot take your rear falling right and the dead corner falling left."

Vera splashed to Dane’s intact rear-right side. "I’ll give you weight from the good corner. Want it?"

He waited until her hands rested lightly on the upper rail, then knocked once.

Dane moved his front-right wheel by one spoke. Vera leaned. Her pressure landed above the axle and tipped his rear toward her faster than the wheel entered the groove. The supply packs slid against their lash. Across his body, the dead front-left strip dipped toward the ridge.

Ada’s grip hardened. "Left strip is coming down. Stop there, Dane."

He stopped. Water slapped through his spokes and climbed another line up the right wheels. Vera took both hands away, scraped one boot against the other, and muttered when the algae stayed put.

Vera breathed once against the rail. "I gave you height when you needed the axle. Let me try lower."

Dane knocked.

She crouched and put her shoulder against the brace beside the axle. This time her weight found the right part of him, but her rear boot found algae. The sole shot backward. Her shoulder struck wood, her hip bumped the wheel, and her forward heel landed where his rim was already turning.

Dane wrenched the wheel left. The rim missed her heel and banged stone hard enough to shake rust from the reeds.

Vera caught herself on the channel floor with both boots. Her next breath trembled before she swallowed it.

"Heel’s clear," she said. "Don’t move that wheel until I find somewhere less stupid."

The low curtain behind them groaned. Water poured over the shelf the coffer had used, struck Dane’s rear wheels, and swallowed the stone his left wheel had just left.

Serrick dragged the rake handle along Dane’s right side, below the bed and behind the axle. "Forearm here. Hip on the brace. Keep your feet in the groove. You give weight; he chooses the wheel."

Vera found the low wood with her forearm. "Your wheel, my weight?"

One knock.

Her hip settled against the intact brace. Both boots ground in the submerged groove, close enough that Dane felt each slip through the same stone. She leaned without pulling on his rail.

Dane advanced a spoke.

The front-right wheel entered the gap. Current filled the open space under his bed and pushed for the broadest part of him. He held his Wagon frame while Vera walked beside the right rear, forearm sliding along the brace, hip keeping the good corner low. Ada moved on the opposite quarter with rod one steady. Brant called the clearance in uneven pieces, pausing whenever water drowned his first word.

"Rear can come right two fingers," he said. "Then straighten. The ring is below your dead strip now."

Dane gave Vera the two fingers. The supply lash pulled toward the current; his floor shifted under the packs, caught them, and brought them through without a knot loosening.

The live braid scraped the underside of his right rail. Tiny feet scattered across the reed and onto his grain. Rust flakes ticked into his bed. As the beetles left the loaded stems, the braid lifted against him and a new stream burst toward the occupied shelf.

A mat dragged. The barred door across the water shook in its sockets.

"They’re climbing off the load," Serrick said. "Keep him still."

Dane held the wheel. Vera’s boots slid half a handspan, recovered, and kept pressure on the brace.

Serrick’s rake passed over Dane’s open rail. The bone shaft knocked one rust flake from his bed onto a lower seedhead. Beetle feet followed it, first on Dane’s grain, then down the stem. More rust struck the lower reeds. Their weight pulled the curtain back toward the channel floor until the hard stream missed the shelf.

The door bar stopped shaking.

"Your rear is clear," Brant said. "Straighten on your own line."

Dane brought both right wheels around. His dead front-left corner passed above the ridge without touching it. Ada kept rod one fixed until all four wheels stood on the next shelf.

Vera lifted her forearm and stepped out of contact. A reed tassel snapped behind her. Something small fell inside her collar.

She yelped and slapped both hands against her shirt without finding it. Tiny feet crossed wet cloth, dropped onto Dane’s rear rail, and walked over his grain with a rust flake underneath.

One rain-swollen hinge clicked.

Vera went completely still. "Do that again and it goes in your axle."

Dane held every hinge quiet while the beetle crossed him and climbed the next reed.

Serrick’s rake tapped the safe side of the following ring. "The shelf is sinking. Save the conversation."

The bypass bent through occupied stone. Dane learned the homes from the sounds they made when strangers approached. Containers clinked into baskets. Wooden handles struck a wall. Wet cloth snapped down from a line above his rail. A door bar dropped after Buk’s litter passed, and a root basket scraped out of Dane’s front route.

"Wheel stays in the water," that adult said. "Roots stay mine."

Dane turned half a spoke away.

Brant called a low ceiling of knotted roots before the second squeeze. Dane lowered his front rails beneath it. Vera returned to the axle-side brace only after offering her forearm and receiving his knock. The stone still shifted beneath her boots, but now her weight arrived where his frame could use it.

Voss crossed the next shelf on his good hook. Iron bit stone, his back pulled, and the two splinted legs plus bound stump dragged through the shallow water without touching the live braid. Kril followed with every blade folded close. Brant came after them, arms fixed against his body while his chin kept the next ring in line.

Behind Brant, the lowest curtain took the shelf. Water rose over the coffer’s first joints. Its front and rear knocks disagreed over two stones; one rocked under a testing foot, the other held. When all six legs turned to the stable side, the four lighter rhythms repeated against empty water.

Flat Hands and Lye Scar brought Buk across after it. Lye Scar shortened around the rocking stone. Flat Hands absorbed the lost length at the head pole, and Buk stayed level. His brooms and brass tab kept knocking, slower now because he had stopped trying to speak through the reeds.

At the last curtain, water struck Dane’s rear wheels hard enough to tighten every pack lash. Serrick called to the deeper shelf. Two voices answered; bare feet slapped stone, and the living stems stretched under their joined pull.

"They have it high," Brant said. "Dane, your dead corner clears first. Vera and Ada beside him."

Dane entered angled. The adults’ breath broke into grunts while the wet braid slid across their grip. Vera walked her pressure along the intact rear brace. Ada guarded the split. Each spoke crossed because Dane chose it, and the packs came with him.

His back corner cleared the ring. Vera stepped onto the deeper shelf and removed her forearm. Ada followed. The adults held the curtain while Kril crossed with folded blades. Serrick came last, bare feet splashing beside the bone-and-iron rake.

The residents released the reeds.

Farther back, the cookstone scraped into its hollow. A door bar lifted, then dropped again when the first curtain started to move. Someone dragged the root basket onto higher stone.

Stems whipped the channel. Rings groaned behind Dane, one after another. Beetle feet traveled along the roots overhead and down the hanging cords; he could follow them only when rust began striking stone, first high, then low, each flake landing closer to the opposite side of a ring.

"Left-hand loops are coming loose," Brant said.

Water abandoned the shelves in stages. The first route filled, then the next. A loosened braid dragged across the current with a long wet rasp. Beetles gathered somewhere beyond Dane’s reach, shifting enough rust to pull the same stems back through the rings.

"They’re tightening from the right now," Vera said. "Same reeds. No gap behind us."

The final curtain dropped. Water that had followed their wheels struck Dane’s rear rail and stayed there, pressing against living stems where the road had been.